Advantages of Growing Vegetable Crops in Modern Greenhouses

There are numerous advantages in growing vegetable crops in modern-equipped greenhouses and protected spaces without daylight, compared with the traditional production (open-field), or with the production in ordinary greenhouses. In modern greenhouses, particularly in the glass ones, it is possible to control the climate conditions entirely, plant nutrition, implementation of CO2 and other necessary installations, or automation of production process. That enables all-year round and/or off-season production, which is increasingly in demand in markets all over the world. It particularly goes for vegetables crops typical of warm season (tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers), but also for those of cool season (lettuce, spinach, radishes, broccoli). The USDA organization has developed a software program, which is titled a Virtual Grower. It helps growers to calculate the heating costs of their greenhouse. The software can be used to predict heating and energy consumption specific for the location, greenhouse design, crop produced, and preferences of management. The software program, and a short video, too, can be downloaded for free from the following Web site: https://ag.umass.edu/greenhouse-floriculture/fact-sheets/virtual-grower-link-to-usda-software. There is a widespread question among the expert circles whether the vegetable crops are going to be “moved” to greenhouses due to the large-scale climate changes, and in this sense, what the possibilities are for the vegetable crop production. Therefore, any innovation in science is highly important for future patents that may be applicable in agriculture and consequently in vegetable crop growing practice

Characterization of carbon fibrous material from platanus achenes as platinum catalysts support

Carbon materials with developed porosity are usually used as supports for platinum catalysts. Physico-chemical characteristics of the support influence the properties of platinum deposited and its catalytic activity. In our studies, we deposited platinum on carbon fibrous like materials obtained from platanus seeds - achenes. The precursor was chemically activated with different reagents: NaOH, pyrogallol, and H2O2, before the carbonization process. Platinum was deposited on all substrates to study the influence of the substrate properties on the activity of the catalyst. Carbon materials were characterized by nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms measurements, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy. It was noticed that the adsorption characteristics of carbon support affected the structure of platinum deposits and thus their activity

Synthesis of Nanocrystalline Magnesium and Aluminum Diborides

For obtaining MgB2 and AlB2 with nanometer size of coherent scattering area the technique based on the preliminary mechanical activation (MA) of initial reagents powder mixes and the subsequent reaction in the mode of the thermal explosion (TE) was used. The mentioned diborides are the promising compounds to use as a high-energy material in the ramjets and solid rocket motors because they possess very high mass- and volume-heat of combustion. Mostly, the diborides are produced under conditions of high temperatures and pressures. In this research a possibility has been explored of their producing by thermal explosion method when using preliminary mechanically activated components. The peculiarities of the technique to produce diborides are examined. Results of radiographic and electron microscope studies of the mixes of reagents after mechanical activation and of thermal explosion products are presented

Preventing implant-associated infections by silver coating

Implant-associated infections (IAI) are a dreaded complication mainly caused by biofilm-forming staphylococci. Implant surfaces preventing microbial colonization would be desirable. We examined the preventive effect of a silver-coated titanium aluminium niobium (TiAlNb) alloy. The surface elicited a strong, inoculum-dependent activity against Staphylococcus (S.) epidermidis and S. aureus in an agar inhibition assay. Gamma sterilization and alcohol disinfection did not alter the effect. In a tissue cage mouse model, silver coating of TiAlNb cages prevented peri-operative infections in an inoculum-dependent manner, and led to a 100 % prevention rate after challenge with 2 x 106 CFU S. epidermidis/cage. In S. aureus infections, silver coating had only limited effect. Similarly, daptomycin or vancomycin prophylaxis alone did not prevent S. aureus infections. However, silver coating combined with daptomycin or vancomycin prophylaxis thwarted methicillin-resistant S. aureus infections in 100 % or 33%, respectively. Moreover, silver release from the surface was independent of infection and occurred rapidly after implantation. On day 2, a peak of 82 μg Ag/ml was reached in the cage fluid corresponding to almost 6 times the minimal inhibitory concentration of the staphylococci. Cytotoxicity towards leukocytes in the cage was low and temporary. Surrounding tissue did not reveal histological signs of silver toxicity. In vitro, no emergence of silver resistance was observed in several clinical strains of staphylococci upon serial subinhibitory silver exposure. In conclusion, our data demonstrate that silver-coated TiAlNb is potent for preventing IAI and thus can be considered for clinical application

Structural and morphological studies on wet-etched InAlGaN barrier HEMT structures

The quaternary nitride-based high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) has been recently a focus of interest because of the possibility to grow lattice-matched barrier to GaN and tune the barrier bandgap at the same time

Operation Of The NuMi Beam Monitoring System

The NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) facility produces an intense neutrino beam for experiments. The NuMI Beam Monitoring system consists of four arrays of ion chambers that measure the intensity and distribution of the remnant hadron and tertiary muon beams produced in association with the neutrinos. The ion chambers operate in an environment of high particle fluxes and high radiation.Physic

Discovery of Small-Molecule Enhancers of Reactive Oxygen Species That are Nontoxic or Cause Genotype-Selective Cell Death

Elevation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels has been observed in many cancer cells relative to nontransformed cells, and recent reports have suggested that small-molecule enhancers of ROS may selectively kill cancer cells in various in vitro and in vivo models. We used a high-throughput screening approach to identify several hundred small-molecule enhancers of ROS in a human osteosarcoma cell line. A minority of these compounds diminished the viability of cancer cell lines, indicating that ROS elevation by small molecules is insufficient to induce death of cancer cell lines. Three chemical probes (BRD5459, BRD56491, BRD9092) are highlighted that most strongly elevate markers of oxidative stress without causing cell death and may be of use in a variety of cellular settings. For example, combining nontoxic ROS-enhancing probes with nontoxic doses of l-buthionine sulfoximine, an inhibitor of glutathione synthesis previously studied in cancer patients, led to potent cell death in more than 20 cases, suggesting that even nontoxic ROS-enhancing treatments may warrant exploration in combination strategies. Additionally, a few ROS-enhancing compounds that contain sites of electrophilicity, including piperlongumine, show selective toxicity for transformed cells over nontransformed cells in an engineered cell-line model of tumorigenesis. These studies suggest that cancer cell lines are more resilient to chemically induced increases in ROS levels than previously thought and highlight electrophilicity as a property that may be more closely associated with cancer-selective cell death than ROS elevation.Chemistry and Chemical Biolog

High-pressure cryogelation of nanosilica and surface properties of cryosilicas

Silica cryogels (cryosilicas) in a powder state were synthesized with different concentrations of fumed silica A-300 (CA-300 = 5-20 wt.%), sonicated in aqueous suspension, then frozen at -14 oC at different pressures in a high-pressure stainless steel reactor (a freezing bomb), and dried in air at room temperature. To analyze the effects of low temperature and high pressure, samples were also prepared at -14 oC or room temperature and standard pressure. The structural and adsorption properties of the powder materials were studied using nitrogen adsorption, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetry, low-temperature 1H NMR spectroscopy and thermally stimulated depolarization current. The structural, textural, adsorption and relaxation characteristics of high-pressure cryogel hydrogels and related dried powders are strongly dependent on the silica content in aqueous suspensions frozen at 1, 450 or 1000 atmospheres and then dried. The largest changes are found with CA-300 = 20 wt.% which are analyzed with respect to the interfacial behavior of nonpolar, weakly polar and polar adsorbates using low temperature 1H NMR spectroscopy

A comparison study of Modelling Techniques fo Permanent Magnet Machines

In this paper, four different modelling techniques for permanent magnet (PM) machines are compared for their accuracy and computational complexity. The considered techniques are primarily based on conformal mapping and harmonic modelling. In conformal mapping, the slotted air gap is mapped into a simpler canonical shape, where the field solution is calculated and then mapped back to the original domain. In harmonic modelling, the regions of the machine cross section are represented as Fourier series and coupled with each other by means of boundary conditions. The field solution is obtained by solving the boundary value problem. In order to quantify the accuracy of the field solutions, global parameters such as cogging torque and flux linkage are computed. The effectiveness of the modelling techniques are evaluated by comparing the global parameters and the simulation time with finite element analysis (FEA) result